Town Square

Most common police call: false alarms

The Danville Police Department receives more calls to respond to burglar alarms than any other call for service -- and 98 percent of the alarms are false. An alarm registry program has decreased the number of calls since its inception in January 2012.

It's a bunch if baloney. Why would someone who already pays for monitoring register with the police department? I don't see how "registering" an alarm is beneficial in any way. What good does a call from the police department do that the monitoring company doesn't?

Everyone who has a mechanical alarm which causes the police to respond to a non-crime should have to pay for that service - each time. If I read this correctly 100% of the mechanical alarms that the police responded to in 2010 were "unfounded." Why are the rest of us paying for unnecessary services demanded by these people which make the police put aside their legitimate responsibilities to respond to false alarms?

This may be off topic somewhat but..... I have had to call the Danville police on a few occasions in the past, and their response times are just crazy. When I needed to call them when I lived in Danville ( less than a minute from the station) it took them 20 minutes to arrive. But when I gave up on them I called the contra costa sheriff ( who's dispatch is in Martinez) they arrived in 5 minutes. Why is this?
As of recent I have been listening to the Contra Costa police scanner to try and understand what is causing such delays is a reportedly minimal crime rate in the areas. Now for those with alarms that go off when you are home and are false alarms the dispatcher has those dates and times at their fingertips. The dispatcher informs the officer of the amount of false calls and reccomends to the officer to code out and ignore. If you are paying a private company and now being asked to do this I ask why. If you wish to get a small wake up call on what they really have on each person and place I suggest to download a police scanner app and listen. I am sure the criminal element it doing this now because they talk about everything personal on each stop to how many false codes are at each resident that has one at that time.
Just my thoughts, good luck and happy listening.